Leakage mitigation in NW FET using negative Schottky junction drain and its process variation analysis

Journal of Computational Electronics - In this work, a Schottky junction on the drain side employing low workfunction (WF) metal is proposed as a method to suppress the OFF-state leakage in...     

Enhanced anti-biofilm activity of facile synthesized silver oxide nanoparticles against K. pneumoniae

Journal of Inorganic and Organometallic Polymers and Materials - The silver oxide nanoparticle was successfully synthesized using floral waste by simple one pot, cost effective method. The complete...     

Water-saving strategies for irrigation agriculture in Saudi Arabia

Agriculture policy changes in Saudi Arabia are investigated by water footprint (WF) assessment. WF is calculated with the model SPARE:WATER for 3758 irrigated sites. The WF of agriculture areas (WF_area, km³ yr^?1) has decreased (–17%) since the year 2000 to 13.84 km³ yr^?1 (2011), which is mainly caused by the reduction of cropland by –33%. Nevertheless, water consumption per field has increased about 16%, which can be attributed to the cultivation of fodder crops (+12%). A scenario analysis revealed that a shifting cropping pattern towards less fodder crops reduces WF_area by –15%, and implementing improved irrigation technology leads to a combined reduction of up to 32%     

Morphological exploration of chemical vapor–deposited P-doped ZnO nanorods for efficient photoelectrochemical water splitting

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is beneficial and has received attractive attention due to a greater potential to generate hydrogen and oxygen from water by using plentiful solar light to solve the problem of energy crisis. Various active semiconductor materials are used in PEC water splitting applications. Nevertheless, in past decades, most of the researchers suggested that titanium oxide (TiO₂) is the best photoanode for this type of applications. Now, Zinc oxide (ZnO) is considered a perfect substitution to TiO₂ due to its comparable energy band structure and superior photogenerated electron transfer rate. In this study, bare and phosphorous-doped ZnO nanorods were successfully developed on fluorine-doped tin oxide-coated glass (FTO) substrate by chemical vapor deposition. X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern authenticated hexagonal structure formation with strong diffraction peak of (101), which showed that ZnO nanorods were perfectly developed along c axis. The optical and morphological properties were analyzed by UV–Vis and scanning electron microscopy images. The energy-dispersive X-ray spectra demonstrated that doping agent phosphorous was present in ZnO nanorods. The PEC properties of the developed ZnO nanorods were further investigated and obtained results suggested that a small amount of phosphorous-doped ZnO nanorods enhances their PEC performance.     

Supporting ontology adaptation and versioning based on a graph of relevance

Ontologies recently have become a topic of interest in computer science since they are seen as a semantic support to explicit and enrich data-models as well as to ensure interoperability of data. Moreover, supporting ontology adaptation becomes essential and extremely important, mainly when using ontologies in changing environments. An important issue when dealing with ontology adaptation is the management of several versions. Ontology versioning is a complex and multifaceted problem as it should take into account change management, versions storage and access, consistency issues, etc. The purpose of this paper is to propose an approach and tool for ontology adaptation and versioning. A series of techniques are proposed to ‘safely’ evolve a given ontology and produce a new consistent version. The ontology versions are ordered in a graph according to their relevance. The relevance is computed based on four criteria: conceptualisation, usage frequency, abstraction and completeness. The techniques to carry out the versioning process are implemented in the Consistology tool, which has been developed to assist users in expressing adaptation requirements and managing ontology versions.     

Abundant non-toxic materials for thin film solar cells: Alternative to conventional materials

Presented are the results of a comparative analysis to identify abundant, non-toxic binary materials with potential applicability for photovoltaics. Materials other than the conventional Si, CdTe, and Cu(In,Ga)Se₂ (CIGS) are examined. The screening is based on the materials’ bulk properties and a set of environmental, physical, and chemical criteria. The screening process is detailed and the properties and applicability of the screened materials are discussed.     

Designing zinc oxide nanostructures (nanoworms,nanoflowers, nanowalls,and nanorods) by pulsed laser ablation technique for gas-sensing application

In this study, pulsed laser ablation technique, also known as pulsed laser deposition (PLD), is used to design and grow zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures (nanoworms, nanowalls, and nanorods) by template/seeding approach for gas-sensing applications. Conventionally, ZnO nanostructures used for gas-sensing have been usually prepared via chemical route, where the 3D/2D nanostructures are chemically synthesized and subsequently plated on an appropriate substrate. However, using pulsed laser ablation technique, the ZnO nanostructures are structurally designed and grown directly on a substrate using a two-step temperature-pressure seeding approach. This approach has been optimized to design various ZnO nanostructures by understanding the effect of substrate temperature in the 300-750°C range under O₂ gas pressure from 10-mTorr to 10 Torr. Using a thin ZnO seed layer as template that is deposited first at substrate temperature of ~300°C at background oxygen pressure of 10 mTorr on Si(100), ZnO nanostructures, such as nanoworms, nanowalls, and nanorods (with secondary flower-like growth) were grown at substrate temperatures and oxygen background pressures of (550°C and 2 Torr), (550°C and 0.5 Torr), and (650°C and 2 Torr), respectively. The morphology and the optical properties of ZnO nanostructures were examined by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM-EDX), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), and photoluminescence (PL). The PLD-grown ZnO nanostructures are single-crystals and are highly oriented in the c-axis. The vapor-solid (VS) model is proposed to be responsible for the growth of ZnO nanostructures by PLD process. Furthermore, the ZnO nanowall structure is a very promising nanostructure due to its very high surface-to-volume ratio. Although ZnO nanowalls have been grown by other methods for sensor application, to this date, only a very few ZnO nanowalls have been grown by PLD for this purpose. In this regard, ZnO nanowall structures are deposited by PLD on an Al₂O₃ test sensor and assessed for their responses to CO and ethanol gases at 50 ppm, where good responses were observed at 350 and 400°C, respectively. The PLD-grown ZnO nanostructures are very excellent materials for potential applications such as in dye-sensitized solar cells, perovskite solar cells and biological and gas sensors.     

Microstructural properties and improvement in photoluminescence thermometry of Mn-activated single-phased Zn–SO–Mn phosphors

Fabrication by sol–gel and study of the physical properties of Mn²⁺ doped Zn₂SiO₄ (Zn–SO–Mn) materials phosphors (heat-treated at 1500 °C) were reported. The morphology, microstructure and size of the particles were resolved by the XRD and TEM techniques. Moreover, PL measurements of the samples phosphors demonstrate a good emission at 576 nm (yellow: ⁴T₁–⁶A₁). The decay kinetics of the emission (yellow: ⁴T₁–⁶A₁) was analyzed (fitting: a single exponential function). After the adjustment, the Zn–SO–Mn samples exhibited that the lifetime is around 13.09 ms. These lifetime are considered as promising values compared to those obtained until now. In fact, these results provide a simple means of obtaining the phosphors have excellent yellow luminescence which is very interesting for several technological applications.

     

Detection of heartbeat sounds arrhythmia using automatic spectral methods and cardiac auscultatory

The Journal of Supercomputing - Auscultation, the listening process for lung sound using acoustic stethoscope, is the first physical examination used to detect any disorder in heartbeat system....